3 days ago
Volunteers stretched thin as rough sleepers left hopeless amid 'undersupply' of Queensland homes
It's six o'clock on a Tuesday morning and Josie Street is loading her car, its bags overflowing with an assortment of biscuits wedged between eskies filled with sandwiches and cold water.
Not an inch of space in her station wagon is wasted.
"If I've got extra room I will put extra things like backpacks and mats that they sleep on, and I'll always have two or three tents with me," she explains.
Twice a week the retiree drives around for hours in her fast-growing home city of Hervey Bay, delivering supplies to people sleeping rough or in emergency accommodation.
"We can help them with food and daily essentials items. We're not in the right position to give them accommodation or even suggest where they can go for accommodation because everything is just so full at the moment," she said.
Homelessness organisations across Queensland are reporting overwhelming demand for their services.
In Hervey Bay, three hours north of Brisbane, the markings of the state's housing crisis are hard to ignore.
Ms Street remembers the moment that prompted her to start her own volunteer group five years ago during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"There was a person sleeping on the bench and he woke up, asked someone for some money for coffee," she recalled.
"I thought, 'there must be something I can do to help these people'.
"If I was Superwoman I'd get another crew going but I just can't do it. It's not as easy as that."
During her rounds Ms Street visits more than 70 people in need of essentials.
She always comes across new faces.
Among them is Carol Webster who moved to Hervey Bay in 2015 for better disability services for her 30-year-old son Brendan who has Down syndrome.
"We're living at my [other] son's, couch surfing," she said.
"Sometimes Brendan doesn't even want to wake up, he's so depressed.
The rental vacancy rate in Hervey Bay remains stubbornly low at 0.9 per cent.
Across Queensland it has not nudged past 1 per cent since 2021.
Ms Webster has all but given up on finding a rental home for her and her son.
"As soon as you say 'I'm homeless, I really need a house' they don't want nothing to do with you," she said.
The lack of social housing has left support services almost buckling under the strain.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) reported that the number of Australians accessing government-funded homelessness support was increasing by an average of 1.4 per cent annually.
Between 2023 and 2024 AIHW found almost 280,100 Australians were assisted by homelessness support services.
Of those, 48,800 people reached out for help in Queensland — the third largest uptake in the country behind Victoria and New South Wales.
"Three-point-five per cent of housing in Queensland is social and affordable housing," said Queensland Shelter chief executive Fiona Caniglia.
The Queensland LNP government's pledge to deliver one million homes by 2044 includes 53,500 for social and affordable housing.
But those in social housing could soon face evictions, with the government announcing earlier this week that from July 1 it will launch annual rent reviews to determine if social housing recipients are still within the income limit.
But Ms Caniglia said the problem extended beyond social housing.
"The trouble is that social housing is meant for people below a certain income threshold," she said.
"In Queensland we don't have enough of what's called affordable housing, which is available to people at a discount of market rent.
Federally the National Housing Accord, of which Queensland is a signatory, has a goal to deliver 1.2 million new homes by mid-2029.
But Ms Caniglia said governments were not on track to meet the targets.
"It's very, very challenging," she said.
In parks and public spaces across some major cities tensions are boiling over.
Brisbane, Gold Coast and Moreton Bay councils are taking an increasingly hardline approach against rough sleepers by threatening fines, evictions or bulldozing homeless camps.
"It's very confronting to see people living in improvised dwellings in public spaces that are perhaps also the places where we gather for celebrations and our children play," Ms Caniglia said.
"We urge them to not just move people on though because they move them to other places and cause the same challenges for another local government."
Homeless for five years, Stephen Gallagher was among a camp of rough sleepers dispersed from a Hervey Bay park by the local council in January.
"This whole park got shut down — no power, toilets are locked, no water out of the taps. It's just a dead park."
The Fraser Coast Regional Council said the evictions were in the interests of public safety.
Last month, two men were jailed following separate assaults on council employees in the area.
"Our community rangers were just out there doing their jobs. These assaults were completely unacceptable," Fraser Coast Council chief executive Ken Diehm said.
"No-one should be subjected to abuse or violence at work."
For Mr Gallagher, each day is getting more difficult.
"I don't know where else to go," he said.
While fixing the housing crisis is a long-term goal, immediate challenges also need addressing.
The recently formed Homelessness Ministerial Advisory Council is a Queensland government initiative bringing together frontline homelessness services, community leaders and government agencies.
Queensland Shelter's Fiona Caniglia is a member.
"We urge local governments to come together with not-for-profits and the Queensland government and launch a coordinated approach to talking to people, assessing their needs, and try to really encourage them to take up offers of crisis accommodation," she said.
